


When The Wind Is Southerly...

by Anonanonsir



Category: Enderal (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 13:56:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8627116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonanonsir/pseuds/Anonanonsir
Summary: Eska and Sirius take shelter from a storm. One-shot set in Ostian, pre-game.





	

“Blazes, what are you doing? Get down!” Sirius shouted up at him from the foot of the wall.

But Eska inched higher, his fingers probing the wet, slippery joints for purchase. Just a little higher.

“You’re going to–”

But the rest of Sirius’ words were snatched away in the wind as his head crested the top of the rampart. Eska gasped, hands scrabbling frantically as the full force of the gale struck him like a wall. It tore his breath away, it felt like drowning, like being pummeled by great invisible waves. He clung to the top of the wall, pressing his face to the stones, they felt wet against his lips and tasted faintly of salt, dragging in quick, shaking breaths. 

The rain pelted his skin, stinging like sand, and the roar filled his ears. It felt like the hand of a god. Not the festering, carrion god of the Temple. This was pure and raw; blind, unfettered power. Terrifying and exhilarating all at once. It buzzed through his veins like electricity. He was laughing, half nerves, half sheer exultant joy. He drew in a breath and raising his head as much as he dared, let out a triumphant whoop and the wind tore the sound from his lips.

Angling his face away from the wind, his eyes nearly shut against the rain, he looked out over the city. Everything was grey and cloaked in rain, palm fronds and debris whirling above the rooftops. And over all of it towered the great  lighthouse. Even unfinished, its blazing eye asleep, it was magnificent, and never more so than now, stolid and unshaken in defiance of the wind and the waves. The single good thing in that city of death, its sole purpose to guide and to protect. If he were to pray to anything, if he were to pray at all, he thought, it would be to that.

He slid backwards, worming back down the wall. He was still laughing when he dropped to the ground beside Sirius, his hair blown back and wild from the wind. 

He stumbled against his friend, gasping. “That was amazing!”  

Sirius glowered at him. “What if you’d fallen?”

“Worth it!” Eska laughed, slumping down in the mud against the wall and after several reluctant moments, Sirius sank down beside him.  

The slums weren’t safe in a hurricane. It ripped through the tumbledown houses like matchwood. They’d taken shelter instead where the slums’ north wall met the palace ramparts. It was open to the rain, but it offered some shelter from the wind and flying debris.

“Oh!” Eska sat bolt upright, fumbling for his bag, “I almost forgot!” He pulled out a small loaf of bread, sodden with rain and breaking apart in his hands. He offered half to Sirius, looking absurdly pleased with himself.

Sirius, however, regarded the food warily. “Where did you get it?”

Eska's smile faltered. “I found it. I swear!,” he almost had to shout to be heard over the rain. “Must have gotten dropped or something in all the mess when the storm blew in. Almost had to fight Cat Scratch for it! But I didn’t steal it, Sirius, I swear I didn’t.”

Sirius took the bread, a faintly sheepish flush tinging his cheeks. “Thanks.”

Eska's face blazed into a grin once more, and he shoved his half into his mouth, practically inhaling it.

The rain poured over them in sheets, cold as the water which ran down from the mountains in spring. The heavy, sodden chill soaking straight through his skin and into his bones.The proximity of the two walls channeled the water, and already the resulting stream had covered their feet. Rain ran down his neck, down his face, he could scarcely breath without choking on it.

He huddled closer to Sirius, shivering.

“You’re a leech, you know that?” his friend laughed, shifting to put an arm round his shoulders.

Eska smiled and closed his eyes, settling into the warm hollow of Sirius’ shoulder. He felt safe. Safer hungry and freezing in the mud in the middle of a hurricane than he ever had warm and dry in his bed at home. It felt like being in the eye of the storm, a patch of stillness with the whole world being torn apart around him, but as long as he stayed there, none of it could touch him. As long as Sirius was there, it would be alright.


End file.
